Analysis of She's All My Fancy Painted Him

Lewis Carroll 1832 (Daresbury) – 1898 (Guildford)



She's all my fancy painted him
(I make no idle boast);
If he or you had lost a limb,
Which would have suffered most?

He said that you had been to her,
And seen me here before;
But, in another character,
She was the same of yore.

There was not one that spoke to us,
Of all that thronged the street:
So he sadly got into a 'bus,
And pattered with his feet.

They sent him word I had not gone
(We know it to be true);
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

They gave her one, the gave me two,
They gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

It seemed to me that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle, that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.

Don't let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF XGXG GDGD HXHC XIXI JHJH
Poetic Form Quatrain  (88%)
Metre 11110101 111101 11111101 111101 11111110 011101 10010100 110111 11111111 111101 111010101 010111 11111111 111111 11110101 110111 11010111 111111 11011111 110101 11111111 010101 11111111 010110 11111111 011111 11001101 1000101 11111111 111101 01011101 010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 962
Words 198
Sentences 9
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 90
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 16, 2023

1:00 min read
116

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. more…

All Lewis Carroll poems | Lewis Carroll Books

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